While democracy may not be dead at the local level in North Vancouver, there is
going to be less of it in the future. There are going to be fewer
opportunities for citizens to have influence on their local governments
for several reasons:

1. Longer terms. After the election
in November it will be four years until the next one. So if you don't
like the direction your mayor and council are going, it be an extra year
before you will be able to vote them out.

2. The provincial
government's failure to reform local election financing. Developers and
unions that have the greatest interest in council decisions and which
are the main contributors to the campaigns of Councillors and Mayors
that support their objectives, are free to continue to do so and their
better financed campaigns will drown out the voices of independents and
suppress serious discussion about the future of our communities.

3.
Official Community Plans are pretty much finished. The District
finished theirs last year and the the City is almost finished it's
latest one. In the City, staff is seeking to extend the horizon of the
plan to 30 years. Most planners would prefer not to expose the land use
planning process to public scrutiny any more frequently than absolutely
necessary. It could be 20 years longer until the next mandatory review
of the plan and opportunity to ask planners fundamental questions about
land use policy and its impact on the community.

4. Media
restructuring. The ability of local media to provide coverage of local
politics in smaller municipalities is already overtaxed given the
revenue sources they have available to them. The editorial and
reporting capability North Vancouver Outlook was a victim of the last
wave of retrenchment. Social media (Twitter, Facebook and blogs) is
growing, but it is not clear if it can fill the gap.

Adding to
the challenge in North Vancouver, there is likely a majority of people
who don't know if their government is the one on 14th and Lonsdale or
the one at 29th and Mahon. Is their biggest concern a shared service
(police, recreation)? Or is it a duplicated one (library, fire halls)?
Do they want a bike lane on the north side of parts of Keith Road or
29th Street (District) or on the south side (in the City) and who is
responsible for painting the line down the middle? I can understand why
someone not directly involved in local politics loses patience and
gives up.

Normal pressures of everyday life just don't leave
enough time to figure out how vote or otherwise influence our
complicated local government structure. Without declared parties to
frame the issues and connect them to overarching ideologies and
perspective, the citizen who may want to vote feels lost and, 4 times
out of 5 in North Vancouver, they don't bother other to participate at
all in the election of the government that arguably influences their
lives the most on a day to day basis.

Mind you, it is also
possible that people who are lucky enough to live in a place as fabulous
as North Vancouver are predisposed to trust that the people in charge
will do the right thing.

But what if those people in charge,
blinded by inertia and self interest, are not doing right by the
community? What if there is an unacceptable level of duplication and
lack of coordination between North Vancouver’s two governments 15 blocks
apart? What if this becomes painfully obvious when long term plans for
land use, density and infrastructure are being developed? And what if it
is getting worse the longer it is allowed to persist?

From 2005
to 2013 City and District government expenditures grew by 46% and 40/%
respectively, the economy and average family incomes grew by around 8%.
With requirements to fund a new sewage treatment plant, and other
projects like Harry Jerome or the new $30 million waterfront attraction
that Mayor Mussatto would would like to build, we can't keep sticking
our collective heads in the sand.

Citizens of North Vancouver
deserve to be confident that our local governments are spending our
money wisely. That it is not being spent on duplicated overhead and that
major projects affecting all North Vancouver are being properly
managed. I am not confident at all. I believe there is a lot at stake
and that we are on the wrong track.

I thought my concerns could
be addressed by taking up a standing offer the Province makes for any
local governments that wants to look at restructuring. This suggestion
was welcomed by District Council, but met with fierce resistance at the
City. Mayor Mussatto went so far as to bully the President of the
Chamber of Commerce for expressing the Chamber's support for the idea of
a study. The City Manager then wrote a report strongly recommending
against the initiative (surprise) which resulted in the motion failing
by a 4 to 3 vote at Council.

While the study is not going
ahead, the ferocity of the resistance to it is very troubling. I am now
more convinced that all citizens of North Vancouver would benefit from
an objective look into the shape and effectiveness of our local
governments. But when the chances to ask those questions are going to
get fewer and farther apart I fear that it is not going to happen. Does
anyone else share my concern?"

13 comments:

We need the 'restructuring' aka Amalgamation in North Van. almost out of necessity and to help maintain a certain level of sustainability within the running of good government. It's time to think of the bigger, selfless picture for the whole community. It's not the complete answer of course, but it's a help and a start.

Well, this is definitely the year to tell them how you feel. I have felt for years that the only reason NVC was "against" amalgamation was because of the possibility of someone losing their job, someone like Mr. Tolstam, and that does a huge disservice to the people who are paying, and paying, and paying their salaries. If you are against rampant, exorbitant and sometimes unnecessary spending, then get out and vote for the candidates who are supporting amalgamation. It is probably unlikely that a referendum in either muni will make it to the ballot this time round, but if there are politicians on City council in particular who think that way, there's a greater chance that it'll happen in 2018. And if we're lucky, Mr. Tollstam will be retired by then, because he's already a bit long in the tooth now!

Tolstam will hang around as long as mussato is mayor. In my opinion the push for development from the prodevelopers side of council is simply an attempt at trying to make the LEC succesful. The OCP has LEC tattooed all over it. I challenge Tolstam to sell this taxpayer subsidized oraginization and get back to delivering services that we pay taxes for. I highly doubt any one would buy the LEC given most of the power plants are on tax payer subsidized city property, and if the city ever got rid of the bylaw that states any development over so many sq ft must be on the LEC is a poisin pill. LEC is a win win for developers, the company setting up the plants. Another drain on the taxpayer

I was searching for info on "ANY" competition for the N.V. City Mayor's seat in the next election...when I came across Mr. Heywood's comments (and the death of democracy)!I SO agree with all he said, and am sorry to hear he's retiring!!I am all for amalgamating N.V. City/District, if only to eliminate a lot of confusion for people... a large percentage of them don't even know which area applies to them! Why are we paying for TWO Mayors and TWO councils??)I know there must be people willing to run against our current Mayor out there somewhere.. and I am now going to go back to my search!Many thanks,

It has always amused me that the houses on the south side of 29th St. W. sit right across the street from DNV Hall, but those homeowners have to go down to 14th to do any business at CNV Hall...The line has been drawn in the road...It gets more confusing around the Grand Blvd, area, where some residents don't even have a clue whether they reside in the "city" or the "district". I kid you not.

Disclaimer

Names, characters, places and incidents portrayed on this website are either products of the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.